GlowCaps
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Vitality GlowCap review
The Vitality GlowCap concept's been floating about for years now, but it still slightly blows our minds -- you stick a tiny, battery-powered wireless computer on top of your pill bottle, which reminds you to take your medicine on time. Well, it turns out they aren't exactly a concept these days, as you can buy one for $10 with a $15 monthly plan, and we've actually spent the past month living with the chirping, glowing, AT&T-connected device, keeping a journal all the while. After the break, find out what a life-saving nag feels like. Note: Amazon's actually out of stock at the time of this writing, but Vitality says a new shipment should arrive tomorrow. %Gallery-114026%
Vitality GlowCaps smart pill bottle toppers now available on Amazon
Pill poppers rejoice! AT&T-connected Vitality GlowCaps are finally available on Amazon. The intelligent pill caps, which use flashing lights and audio reminders, as well as phone calls and SMS, to remind forgetful patients that it's down-the-hatch time, retail between $10 and $15 a month through a Vitality connectivity service plan. Details of GlowCap's functionality were still up in the air when we got our hands on one back in March, but it looks like AT&T and Vitality have ironed out all the smart Rx kinks. Basically, your pill bottle lights up and chimes when it's time for your meds. As soon as you open the bottle, adherence data is then sent via AT&T to Vitality, who then passes that data on to you, your doctor, and any other approved party, in the form of progress reports. They're also equipped to automatically refill your prescription when the bottle gets low. Considering you still remember what that little light means when it appears (and you don't have a penchant for over-medicating), GlowCap might just save your life. We've been using ours for about a month now, and still haven't kicked the bucket -- review coming soon.
Vitality GlowCap hands-on
We just got a quick look at one of those Vitality GlowCap bottles. It's about as dead simple as it looks: the LED at the top of the cap glows (orange, but there's also a blue mode that must mean something else like "you're all going to die"), and with the right amount of adult supervision you can push down and twist off the cap. All the details of the service, which involves patent recognition to figure out the best way to remind you and incentivize you to take your pills via phone calls, flashing lights, and social network reminders, aren't completely ironed out, but it sounds like Vitality is paying AT&T up front for the bandwidth -- at least you won't have another charge on your AT&T bill to worry about. Not shown is a base station that the GlowCaps connect to over 2G wireless (more unclarity here, but rest assured your prescription infos will be beamed over the internet via AT&T's network), and which does the primary flashing when you need to take a pill. %Gallery-88964%
AT&T to provide wireless service for Vitality GlowCaps, Apisphere dog collar
We'd already heard about Isabella Product's new Vizit photo frame that relies on AT&T for wireless service (and is available today), but the carrier has just now announced that it will also be providing service to two other fairly unique products. One of those is Vitality's GlowCaps pill bottle caps, which are able to call or text you if you forgot to take your pills, and keep track of each time the bottle is opened and ensure that prescriptions are refilled before the bottle's empty. The other announcement comes from Apisphere, which is working with AT&T on a SIM card-equipped dog collar that will let dog owners keep track of their pet. Details on it are otherwise still fairly light, but pet owners will apparently be able to establish a "geo-fence" where their dog can roam freely, and be able to receive a variety of alerts if Buster slips outside of the established parameters. Unfortunately, there's not even so much as an image of the collar just yet (let alone a price), but it is expected to launch later this year.
